All posts tagged: Digg

Digg cuts jobs after facing AI bot surge

Digg cuts jobs after facing AI bot surge

Published by Sam Flores

March 13 : Digg is laying off staff citing “brutal reality” in the current digital environment and a surge in artificial intelligence-driven bot activity, more than a year after the once-popular content aggregator announced its comeback. CEO Justin Mezzell said in a blog post on Friday that the company is downsizing its team to a small core group after failing to find product-market fit against established social media platforms. The company grappled with an “unprecedented” influx of sophisticated AI agents and automated accounts that undermined the platform’s voting and engagement systems. “When you can’t trust that the votes, the comments, and the engagement you’re seeing are real, you’ve lost the foundation a community platform is built on,” Mezzell said in a statement. Digg founder Kevin Rose had teamed up with former rival Alexis Ohanian to buy the company as they had bet on an AI-powered revival of the platform that once drew around 40 million monthly visitors. Mezzell said Rose will return to Digg full-time starting in April and will lead the effort to rebuild …

Digg lays off staff and shuts down app as company retools

Digg lays off staff and shuts down app as company retools

Published by skeptic

Digg — Kevin Rose’s reboot of his once-popular link-sharing site — is laying off a sizable portion of its staff, the company announced on Friday. The startup is not closing, however, Digg CEO Justin Mezzell said. Instead, Rose will return to work on Digg full-time as the company tries to find its footing. Rose will continue to work as an advisor at investing firm True Ventures, but will make Digg his primary focus from here on out. The startup had set out to offer an alternative to existing community forums, where people could post and share links, media, and text, and engage in topical discussions. But while Digg had clever ideas on how to better moderate content and verify that users were who they claimed to be, the company admits it was overwhelmed by bots even in its earliest days. Nodding to the “dead internet theory,” which claims today’s web is more bots than people, Mezzell describes the problem of combating bot spam in a post on the Digg website. “When the Digg beta launched, …

Digg is back to take on Reddit, and you can use it now

Digg is back to take on Reddit, and you can use it now

Published by Jenni Sidey

Get the Popular Science daily newsletter💡 Breakthroughs, discoveries, and DIY tips sent six days a week. Digg was one of the most popular websites of the 2000s. It brought millions of users together to share and discuss links from across the web, but lost most of its audience to Reddit after a poorly received redesign in 2010. Reddit is still going strong as the self-styled ‘front page of the internet’, and now Digg is back—led by original co-founder Kevin Rose, together with Reddit co-founder Alexis Ohanian. The idea is straightforward and largely the same as before: To be a place where users showcase the most interesting content on the internet. The new Digg went live for a select number of testers in April 2025, and this month, the doors opened to the general public. The site does still have a ‘beta’ label and continues to be a work in progress. Here’s how to get started, and the features you can explore once you’ve signed up. Signing up and diving in Find communities that you’re interested …